The present invention relates to a direct delivery shopping method that may be integrated into an existing store and more particularly to an improved shopping method for the delivery of purchased items using established technology to provide a level of security for items and establishing delivery at a specific conveyor belt. This method seeks to prevent shoplifting, produce a safer shopping environment, and to improve a customer's shopping experience.
Shoplifting has become a major problem for most retail stores. Shoplifters steal from a wide variety of stores including supermarkets, department stores and convenience stores. Besides the legal effects on the offender, shoplifting overburdens our legal system, causes the cost of goods to increase and increases the cost of a retail store's security system. This affects families and the quality of life in communities.
The safety of shoppers can also become a concern when dangerous items such as chemicals or weapons are purchased. Store employees might forget to warn a customer about the dangers of an item before a customer exits a store.
To this end, there have been a number of systems developed in order to prevent shoplifting or to prevent other customers from being harmed by items that have been sold. Current security measures include but are not limited to stick-on labels or shoplifting prevention tags that can be detected by sensors at store exits. Stick-on labels and tags can be found in various sizes and thickness and can be hidden inside items that have been offered for sale or wrapped on the exterior of the items. The devices can be disabled at the time of payment or by subjecting them to specific emission processes. However, such deactivation processes are not sufficiently reliable. Repeated bending or tearing can cause such devices to malfunction. In addition, customers can easily remove such devices in an attempt to shoplift.
Later improvements to devices to prevent shoplifting include wired tags that are wrapped around boxes or packages. These wired tags proved to be inefficient in that it took a substantial amount of time and cost to mount the devices on packages and the overall appeal of the products was diminished. In addition, the wires would loosen and the packages would ultimately loose protection.
The Food Marketing Institute has reported than in 2012, consumers made an average of 1.7 trips to the supermarket per week. This includes weekly stock-up trips and multiple fill-in trips. Consumers visited various store formats in order to purchase an assortment of products or to buy non-perishable items.
The retail items, limited assortment store, superstore, drugstore and supermarket industries have placed importance on finding convenient methods for customers to select items, eliminating congestion during shopping and reducing customer checkout times. Shopping systems are typically laid out in a manner that allows customers to walk from aisle to aisle while inspecting items. Often times, store aisles are congested with shopping baskets and customers. This often makes it difficult for customers to properly inspect items. In addition, customers might travel longer distances in order to find one item. After selecting items, customers often proceed to checkout areas that are narrow and congested with shopping baskets and additional customers.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a direct delivery shopping method which may be easily integrated into an existing store or shopping complex. This system would also work for small retailers who sell a limited amount of quality items and would like to prevent shoplifting, protect its customers, and protect the quality and integrity of those items.
The new method of delivering items uses an online order system to compute the likelihood of shoplifting based on the theft history of items, the assigned security level, and the product identification. The online system assigns a level of security to the items based on said likelihood of shoplifting of the items. The online order system uses the level of security to implement delivery of said items at a specific conveyor belt. A customer places an order for the item at a store kiosk and the online order system automatically assigns the conveyor belt based on the level of security assigned to the items.